I get at Ypter's Craig, Anthony, Hapa, Tiffany and Cook. It's it's Sunday, it's six thirty three, and I'm going to be a little honest, a little honest, a little transparent, a little vulnerable. This almost didn't happen this podcast.
Sure we were tired, didn't you A little bit after time?
A little bit a little bit. I fuck it anyway, and I was, do you know what this out works? Right? So tomorrow I'm in where I'm interviewing doctor No, you're you're there as well, doctor Bill. We've got some good guests lined up this week. But yesterday, you know, when you we're not doing seven a week every week, but we're trying at the moment, like few things honest people know.
But anyway, yesterday I spent a good hour and a half writing some notes and doing a deep dive and doing some thinking and doing a bit of research and prepping for a show, an episode that I want to do around the brain, right and so not the mind, the brain, like the organ, the three pound, one point four kilogram thing that sits in our head, just to and anyway, I did all this awesome prep. Then I went to record it. I started recording it and I basically did a big verbal poo about ten minutes in
just and hated myself. I'm like, this sounds shit. And then and then I twenty minutes later I rolled again. This time i'd had a coffee. You know how when I drink milk, I get all like like a cat with a fucking.
Fur ball, right, Yes, so I was doing that, so I can.
I started that podcast three times and I anyway, So that's everyone. If you're wondering why there was no podcast today Sunday, the sixteenth of the eleventh, that is why.
But anyway, because I didn't.
Want you to have to deal with my fur balls or my fucking appreciate that.
I deeply appreciate it.
Thank you well you didn't have to try and edit them all out.
But anyway, so I did want to chat today about something that is broadly relevant and something.
I I'm very aware of. I'm acutely aware of.
I probably didn't understand this when I was younger, when I was a young gym instructor, when I was eighteen years old and I was teaching, and you know, obviously with very limited understanding. When you're an eighteen year old
gym instructure. You think you know a bit, you know fuck all, but you know, but the idea that there is a best a best something, a best program, a best diet, a best number of hours of sleep, a best way to train your legs, or a best way to hold on to muscle and lose body fat, or a best way to have optimal energy, or a best way to study, or a best way to research, or a best way to grow a business, or a best
way to get followers on Instagram. There's this very kind of common belief that we need to find the best strategy or dose or medicine or protocol or program, and once we find that then and so it's I guess the misnoma is that there is a single best way.
And so I wanted to talk about firstly, let me read something, and then we're going to do a deep dive into this idea of an equals one doing our own research, figuring out what works for us in the middle of all of the advice and all of the wisdom and all of the science and all of the research which we should pay attention to. But you know, hold that kind of loosely with the knowledge that what will be optimal for TIF in terms of diet or exercise or sleep or recovery or career or relationship type
or whatever. I mean we were talking before we went live about most people would not like my life or yours because there's a lot of unpredictability and a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unknowns. Most people don't like that, Like I don't know how much money I'll make week to week because I don't have a set wage and it changes all the time. And honestly, some weeks I make no money, like literally zero dollars depending on what's happening, and other weeks I make not bad money,
and so on and so on. So you know, even in terms of the way that my life works with work with income, with work life balance, with working from home, with not knowing week to week or month to month what my income might look like, what gigs I'll get, what bookings I'll get, what sponsors I'll get for this show, What sponsors you'll get for your show?
What clients going to turn up for you or not turn up for you? Day to day, week to week. There's a lot of unknown and a lot of variability around that. And for some people that's good because it's exciting, it's not boring, it's not too repetitious. But for other people, it's the opposite of what they want. So here's what I wrote the other day.
The words that will comfort one person will make another person angry. The idea that makes total sense to one individual will make zero sense to another. The medicine that works amazingly for patient A will cause a life threatening reaction for patient B, even though they have the same condition. The barbell squat that's amazing for the Jim bro is the worst exercise in the world for his training partner.
The supplement that improves cognitive function and energy for one UNI student gives her study partner a gut ache and nothing else. The golden retriever that has a calming effect on one person create an anxiety response in another. The husband's hilarious TV show is the wife's complete garbage. The gym that is my natural habitat will be someone else's terrifying environment. The religion that is one person's spiritual home is someone else's dogmatic mind cult.
And I just.
Think that that like keeping that stuff in mind tif knowing that you know the thing that's going to work for you optimally for somebody else is not. And so the idea that we can get advice from people that don't know us as well as we know us, which is nobody knows us as well as we know us, or that somebody that hardly knows you, even if they're well qualified and experienced. We need to keep in mind that all experts. I'm not an expert, You're not an expert.
We're just people on a podcast. But some people would consider experts. But when I talk to people, even if I'm talking about exercise, even if I'm talking about exercise programming, which I am well qualified in and I've done decades of work in that space and train thousands of humans. Even when I give someone specific advice, Even when I write a program for someone, even when I give them a feedback or input, it's still educated guessing. I don't
know exactly what the outcome will be. So when old mate or missus old mate comes to me and they say, can you give me some advice on whatever? How do I get a better ars and legs or whatever, which I've been asked fifteen thousand times, I'll go try this, this and this, do more of that, do less of that, make you do full make sure you do full range with that. Maybe pause at the bottom a little bit. You know, this is how your stand should be activated.
TVA transversus of dominance. Make sure this, make sure that head up, neutral spine. Well, I give them all this advice, but I still don't know one whether or not they're going to do it, and to what the actual outcome will be, because everybody's mind, and everybody's physiology and everybody's emotional system interacts differently to the person next to them, even if it's the same stimulus. So yeah, what about
what about for you? What have you figured out that works for you individually that probably would not work for other people or you might not recommend to others.
Got heaps of stuff, cookies, how many cookies? I ate? But I was talking about this with clients this week, just about that idea of what we know, but like it shifts and changes, Like what works for me now is vastly different to what I did and what worked for me for so many years and what I loved and how I did, especially in terms of movement and training. And the trouble is we are slow to catch on we hold things too tightly. I held on so tightly
to what was good for me and why. And the trouble is, there's there's causation, correlation and context, and the thing that we are looking at is a percent of the entire equation of what is happening in our bodies and minds and our lives that is going into the results that we're getting. But we put blinkers on, you know, we go, Oh, I want my body to change, So I'm going to go for two days a week into a gym and do sixty minutes of training. Tell me what to do. You've got every other hour of every
other day. You've got things you put in your mouth, You've got things that peak your cortersol, and you and your entire systems doing shit all of that other time. But we look at but those two things that I'm doing that someone told me to do, that's going to make change my body?
Yes, yes, And even.
When we're educated, we just don't have the capacity as humans to be aware of all of the things that even when we're self aware, all of the things that are influencing our choices, our behaviors, our stress systems. We never know what stress we're under. When we're under the stress, I always know as I'm coming out of a stress,
how stressed I've been. I'm like, can spend two years going you know, it's been such an amazing time, and then I can come out from a situation look back and go, oh, oh, I've been processing and really, you know, I look at the last five years and go, oh, I've processed a lot of stuff in the last five years. I've kind of been doing a thing that I didn't think I was doing.
Yeah. Yeah, And you're really on the money when you say that. You know, what were word for you at one stage doesn't work for you now, and what you're doing now probably wouldn't have worked for you ten years ago. Like I think about the fact you said before we started recording, you said, have you finished your steps for the day, because it's quarter to seven and I've got to get my ten thousand plus steps in right, And I went, ah, I'm money at nine and a half and.
Blah blah blah. If you had have said to.
Me when I was twenty five, you're going to be walking give or take ten kilometers a day, and I would have been ashamed of myself because I would have thought that as being pathetic, like, oh, you're walking, Oh you fucking weapon, you're walking. I would have been embarrassed at myself, right, but because I'm not running, I'm not, you know, it's like fuck walking.
Oh run. Not only will I run, I will.
Run in soft sand or upp a fucking hill or upstairs, and I'll probably be wearing a weight vest.
Fuck your walk, but right but there, hell, it's like it's not even well.
The physiology is good, I mean moving, you know, moving my body.
That much each day is good.
But for me, the psychological and emotional benefits are probably outweigh the physiological ones. For me, it just does something great to my brain, It does something great to my nervous system.
It just puts me in a good mood. I don't know.
Like when I started doing it, my only motivation was just the awareness that, oh fuck, I'm walking four thousand steps a day. This is pathetic on average, because my phone told me I was a fat fuck right, And then I realized, well, shit, I better just and I started it just because of that because I didn't want to. I want I need it to move more, you know.
But now I do this thing, which is a hardwird like I've not missed a day in over a year, and there's nothing in me that I was ah, fuck, I got to go and walk.
Oh, like there's no you know.
Sometimes I'll get to the end of the day because I've had a really busy day and I go, fuck, it's.
Nine o'clock and I've still got to do four thousand steps. And so every now and then there's a bit of like, yeah, all right, well I'll go out.
And There's been more than ten nights where I've walked in the rain because that's my only option. I go, fuck it, I'm water proof. I'll get wet, I'll come home, I'll take my wet shit off, I'll have a shower and I'll put on dry shit. Like this is not really a challenge, you know, ah, but it's raining. Yeah, I'm wa to proof, you know, it's like fucking it's okay.
But yeah, the stuff that I do now, the stuff that you know, when I was young, I really for a while liked working for someone, and then I kind of got to the point where I went, now, I don't like working for someone, and you know, like I get up every day and there's a lot of uncertainty in that I don't know what will happen today exactly. I don't know which work I'm going to do exactly. I don't know who's going to call. I don't know what emails I'm going to get. I don't know where.
You know with certainty where my energy and focus will be all day, because my days are quite fluid. They're somewhat structured, but they're probably more fluid than I know what I need to get done over the course. It's a little bit like my presentations where I talk for three hours with no structure. I'm going to get through all the bits I want to get through, but I'm not sure where I'll start or where I'll finish and
what the middle bit will be. But we'll get it all covered, and it's going to be more organic and intuitive, and it's going to be more in.
A state of flow than a state of precision planning. Right.
But that really works for my personality, That really works for my energy, that really works for my nervous system and my emotional system, and it really works for me in terms of being able to be the best version of me when I go and do whatever it is that I do. I am absolutely positive that if I had to work in a metaphoric box every day where I had to kind of do a version of the same thing, same hours, same place, same time for lunch, same time, getting there, same time, leaving, same fucking oh
oh me personally. And I know for some people that's actually heaven because they love the predictability and the familiarity and they just happen to work in a place they like, in a culture they like, with people they like.
So I get that.
So I'm not saying this is unequivocally good or bad. I'm just saying Craig Harper would not work well in that environment, you know. So it's knowing, it's knowing how you work, rather than going to some career counselor what do you think I should do? It's like they don't fucking know because they don't know you like, where are you happy? Where do you find joy? What are you passionate about?
You know?
I guess if you get a good counselor, they might ask you those questions. So apologies to create counselors. But yeah, it's just trying to figure it out as you go.
Yeah, I was talking about this with my client today. He's got two sons twelve and fourteen or eleven and fourteen, and I was talking about school and which ones are academic and what they're doing and what they want to be, and I was like, it is absurd to me that kids that age would like I still don't. I'm still making it up, and I because of what I do.
I just when people talk about their options or jobs, I'm like, just why would you not just figure out what you're like and make it in your like, just do a business, just make do something that revolves around that. And I could not fathom the idea of getting up and giving someone eight hours straight of my time and then coming home and like, I couldn't do it. So not having certainty, not having sick pay, not having certain about whether or not all my clients are going to leave tomorrow or I'm.
Going to lose contra holiday pay.
Yeah, holiday pay, all of that stuff. Like I'm like, I'll wear it because I because now this matters more. But it's taken me forty two years to land here of knowing that much.
Yeah, But I think that comes down to your values. One of your values is freedom, and another one is flexibility. Another one is you know, a capacity to learn and grow and evolve and in like however you want. You're not good with rules, you're not good with.
Another one is security for me, which is that's been hard for me, so I go, oh, I need security, so I've had to build it and that's been a long hard thing to continually bump up against.
Well, that's that's very interesting because not too many people are you And I was going to say, but conversely, a lot of people a lot more about security and knowing and predictability and familiarity and you know, like for a lot of people, and I understand this. And by the way, I don't think. I don't think for one moment, listeners, that the way that Tiff and I operate is better. I don't think it's better. I think it's better for
us individually. It wouldn't be a recommendation like if I was coaching someone in this space, not that I do in this space, but I would go, well, what like what really matters to you and what are your values? And I think if I was let's say, a forty year old dude with three kids and a wife, I would have a very different mindset about this because my values would be different. My priority is my focus, the things that worried me would be different, and so I
would probably have a very different perspective. And so that's the point though, the point, that is the point. The point is I'm not that, and that's not good or bad. But what I am is a sixty yearsh year old bloke who this is who I am and how I am and what works for me is A B and C.
And I think that's that's the point.
We're not we're not trying to find the single best job or career path or subject that you should study at university or breakfast cereal for you, or it's like, I think the real thing to learn is how we can learn for ourselves. How can I how can I be the experimenter and the experimentee, How can I be the participant and the researcher. How can I figure out, like what do I need to do more of and less of? What questions do I need to ask? And
what what things do I need to try? What mindset do I need to have to kind of figure out how to be more productive and more effective and more content and I guess produce better results whatever that means in my world, and I think you know how many
people are living in a groundhog day. That if your groundhog day works for you, and if the byproduct of your groundhog day, for the most part is that you are happy, ish, content ish, and not too stressed and not too overthinking and not too anxious, well then you
probably shouldn't change much. But if you are in an operating system and a job or a set of habits and behaviors, or a lifestyle or a relationship which you associate more pain than pleasure, more tears than joy, more anxiety than calm, and you're not consciously trying to do something to change that, then my advice would be that nobody asked for, is that you start to think about that, because you don't have to be resigned to a life of mediocrity and misery.
What about this?
So?
How often do you think people as we me too, think about or even understand how did I? How did I become this? And what did why did? Why do I do this? And with what I do? What brought me in? And what keys? What do I love? What
am I? Why am I even here? But we get we get in a job or a career or something I made so many realizations around landing in the print industry, print and design and marketing, and I was in there for a long time, and it wasn't un till I was out of it and into podcasting and started using my voice and speaking, and that I drew the dots between what I loved about the ability to create visual graphics. That's that speak when you don't have the voice to
convey what you might like to say about you. So I made when I made those links, I was like, fuck, no wonder. I loved that, No wonder. I loved designing something that can speak on your behalf because I fel like I for a lot of my life, I didn't use my voice when I needed to. So I needed to put in a picture, I needed to use visuals to speak. And then I learned about that. I learned It took me a long time to learn that with
that safety versus risk? Okay, how much? How do I create a schedule where I have some routine and some security and some return to and some coming you know, like some stability, but also lots of variety and change. How do I even get that? Because that's hard, Like, look at my resume and there's these three year intervals. Every three I'd look at it and go, fuck, we come up to three years. I think I'm going to
not love my job soon, Like what's that about? And how long do I not love it before I decide that I've got to find a way to move on.
I think that's finding Yeah, finding that mix between stability
and security and also flexibility and freedom. Yeah, you know, that's yeah, that's a I think that's a really not for everybody, but I think for probably a fair percentage of people, that's a nice combination where you know, there's a level of freedom and a level of autonomy and a level of flexibility, but also I'm making good dough and I know each week I'm going to get a pretty good paycheck, and also there's an opportunity for me to.
Grow and evolve in all of that. Or you know, or.
Even if we did it with we shared the same kind of concept with something like food, where you go, well, look, I'm going to be I'm going to eat really clean and really whatever well means I'm going to do the best thing for my body nine percent at the time and ten percent of a time I'm just going to eat for pleasure and that's okay, but probably not ninety ten.
But ten ninety is fine. Ten percent of the time, I'm going.
To have some booze or I'm going to have a cookie in your case or you know, but I'm not going to have thirteen cookies a day, and I'm not going to you know, most of the time, I'm doing most of the things really well. And I think that I've been guilty of this, right because I'm a little bit go hard or go home, and I'm a little bit for me, like the way that I need to be for me, based on how I understand me, I need to be pretty.
Absolute like for me, that just is for me.
But I wouldn't recommend that for most people because you know, I know, like I'm probably better than I ever have been with this. But food is my kryptonite, right, So everything else is not a problem, like training hard, training, consistently working hard, you know, making money, developing relationships, all of those things I'm not bad at, right, but my kryptonite, that my biggest challenge has always been trying to manage myself around food.
So I know, for me, if it's just.
Like, well I don't eat that, then it's just I find that easier then I eat it sometimes because if I eat it sometimes, then I want to eat that shit all.
The time always sometimes.
Yeah, yeah, But also I don't have that body like you can eat shit. I know that you eat well nine percent of the time, but you also have you know, you go to the cookie shop that you've spoken about the world's best cookies, and you know, maceadamia nuts and chocolate and fucking all the yumminess therein and all the calories.
See, if I did that, I'd probably go back again and back again and back again.
And I just like I see myself and people would go I've had people say to me, which I understand, I find it hard that you don't have that self control or whatever. And I get that, and I'm not even offended by that, that that I need to be all or nothing, but I kind of for me, you know, for.
A lot of people are.
Heroine or cocaine or booze or gambling was their addiction or is their addiction. But for me, it was literally food, Like I would literally eat food that I didn't need all the time because it just gave me that pleasure that dopamine. It just made me feel so fucking amazing. Obviously a very short lived amazing because then I felt fucking horrendous physically, emotionally, mentally right. But I didn't learn
my lesson for a very long time. But the truth is that I was just doing irrational things with food, as many people do and have done. And I would eat a certain way when people watching, I would eat differently when people weren't watching, and you know, and so for me, I just needed to make a decision. I don't know why I am that way around food, but I do have or and have that capacity for that addictive kind of behavior clearly with food, because I struggle
with it for a long time. And again this is back to that n equals one kind of thinking, whereas like, well, Craig, what's the.
Best for you?
Well, what's the best for me is to eat a really good, healthy breakfast that's yummy, and I have a version of the same thing every day. Dinner is a version of the same thing. It's some protein. It's often like some basmati rice and some veggies. Every night and through the day, if I'm hungry, there might be some nuts or seeds or protein.
Bar and it's pretty much a version of that.
But it's not like I eat that and go, oh fuck, this is horrible and boring, but geez on discipline. No, I love all of my meals. I still get joy from eating. But I'd never struggle with you know, because I don't open the junk food door. Oh that's not totally honest. Every now and then I do, but it's
really something that's I planned. But if I was kind of semi regularly, if I was buying a pizza every Friday night, I'd probably buy a pizza every Wednesday night as well, within within and then i'd probably buy one on a Thursday as well, you know. So and again I just think that's that uh, you know, that understanding that it's not all arbitrary.
It's not like, well, why don't you just do this?
Well, and that's you know, that's for me, that was something that I had to really start to understand. Helping people create new outcomes and helping people create change is like a lot of like a lot of my kind of operating system and my personal thinking around what I would do was actually inappropriate for the people that I'm working with. So I needed to understand because how I
would approach this problem. If I recommended that to them, that would actually be bad advice and bad coaching because they're not me. They don't have my predisposition, they don't have my genetics, they don't have my background, they don't have my personality, they don't have my addictive whatever for that thing, And so it's trying to understand that person.
And then you know, you give the best advice or the best coaching you can broadly speaking, but then you kind of see how that individual responds to that particular protocol or whatever it is, and then learn from there.
Like with food, I've got a version of that, Like if you brought it. If you brought me ten of those cookies to my house and said, I've got your present. If you brought me one, I'd be like, you're amazing. If you brought me ten, I would almost be angry. I'll be like, that's not funny. That's actually not funny because I can't have because I will eat ten and I'll eat them and I'll feel sick, and I'll eat them again as soon as I'm not feeling like I'll
do that. So it's like I can't have portions of stuff at my house, I have to go out to get it.
So you and I have just publicly disclosed that we've both got fucking body dysmorphia and eating issues and at the very least, if not an eating disorder, which I think we're closer to that end of.
The scale, at the very least disordered eating. This was not my plan.
But you know, it's like I always say this line in a lot of different context and it applies here. It' to use your relationship with the thing that shapes your life, not the thing. So my relationship with how I eat as is yours. Once you understand that, you go, oh, it's not It's not the cookies, it's my relationship with it. So if I decide this protocol works with me, I go and have a cookie however many times a week that I want to, and that's it, but I don't
have more. And when someone brings me a big fucking bulk bag of cookies to my house, I go, no, you can't. That can't be left here. That's not good, that's not fun for me. I I'm my boundaries. Wow, yeah, I think when I was little. When I was little, I used to mumm used to do shopping on a Thursday. She'd fill the fridge up, and I'd come home and I would eat like my dad. She would serve up a plate of dinner at the size of my dad's.
I'd eat it. I'd eat all the leftovers, and then i'd go to the fridge and I'd have all the And one day, you know those big mudcakes from like just the supermarket, just the ships market ones, big chocolate mudcake. One day, I had had a big roast dinner and then I had a little slither of that cake, and I ate the whole thing, aside from one tiny slice I left for mom, the whole thing, Like this tiny, little, skinny, friggin' teenage kid, I was just a hoover.
How old were you at this stage.
Oh, like thirteen fourteen. I would just in it. She'd be like, what, why do you have to eat every I'd do shopping on a Thursday? One Do you have to eat everything?
Now?
We've got nothing nice for the rest of the week. And I'm like, yeah, but it's so good.
Yeah, Well, I'm I'm surprised that that I reckon you're more of an addict than me, Like it's a good thing for you it kind of stopped with food. Did you ever get addicted to anything, not necessarily food, but like, was anything else in that addictive kind of space?
No? Thank god I didn't get into drugs.
Oh yeah, I reckon. If I ever started drinking, I would have been amazing at it. Yeah, I would have been like I would have drunk Booze for Australia.
I would drink when I was younger, and I would drink to it. I would binge drink when I went out or drink to a sess.
But wow, yeah, but not you just say you would binge drink when you went out.
Yeah, I would drink excessively. Yeah, but I wouldn't but not, I wouldn't have to drink regularly if I was Once I was out and drinking, I would drink a lot, way too much, but probably because I would drink stuff that was sugary and it was more of a sugar thing. I was like, oh my an alcoholics. No, No, I'm a sure addict. I'm haven't you had that? Sweet Wow?
You should have just taken some pepsi max and be done with it. You would have saved yourself.
A lot of dollars and a lot of hangovers. Probably would have given yourself a tumor with those fucking artificial sweetness.
I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you what for somebody who's been using artificial sweeteners for about forty years, I'm a little bit nervous at the moment.
I've just been doing a bit of a deep dive. Oh so.
This is not a recommendation everyone, but Craig Anthony Harper. All he has these days is neutrals sweet, which is what's that plant called again.
I'm just blanking.
Steviavia yep, so not is it not neutral sweet anyway?
Steve?
Yeah, is the Yeah, so that's that kind of plant derived.
Yeah. So my preliminary findings seem to suggest that that. Again, this is not a recommendation.
Do your own research, but yeah, yeah, those those ones that are made in the lab. I think there are I think there are some real cognitive potential, cognitive and other consequences for people using lots of that shit. So m anyway, that was a very uplifting ending. Again, you might find that your body's great with it. I personally wouldn't recommend it if it's been it's been real. I don't know this that this is our standout stellar performance.
But it is Sunday night at seven o eight now, so it's been to be weak.
It's going to be weak. It's nearly yet bedtime.
Are you going to are you going to go and have a cookie or what's your Have you had dinner?
Yeah, I've had dinner. I'm done now. I've had a bit early, Harps. I'm like five point thirty dinner for me. I've hit Nana age.
I don't know how you do. I don't know how you do dinner before podcast. I've got to.
Wait till after seven.
I'll stay there once I do dinner.
Though, my brain's like a fucking wombat, just like that's it. Everything just it's like my body goes, oh, we're done. We don't have to think anymore. Here's food. We don't have to think now we've just got to sleep. Thanks Tiff, Thanks Harps.